Legal, Vice President (VP)

What’s happening at Vay

• First to roll out vehicles in both Europe and the USA on public roads without a human being inside & currently the 2nd largest commercial, driverless car fleet in the Western World.
• We've partnered with Kodiak to bring remote-driving technology to autonomous trucks in the US, showcasing our ability to integrate our system into heavy-duty commercial vehicles and expand the applications of our tech across the US.
• We’ve completed 10’s of thousands of trips so far and are busy multiplying our Las Vegas fleet just to meet demand!
• ...And soon we’ll be expanding across the US & Europe 🚀

Why this role is exciting

This is not a role where you inherit a playbook. You write it.
As VP, Legal, you will be the most senior legal voice at Vay, reporting directly to the CEO and sitting at the table where consequential company decisions are made. You’ll own the legal strategy that protects, enables, and accelerates the business as we scale across jurisdictions.

What you’ll be driving

• Lead Vay’s legal function across the US and Europe, setting the strategy, priorities, operating model, and ways of working as the company scales.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the CEO, leadership team, and board across legal, regulatory, commercial, risk, privacy, employment, corporate, and strategic matters.
• Own corporate governance and company structure, including board matters, subsidiary governance, equity management, option grants, 409A processes, and equity plan administration.
• Lead legal workstreams for fundraising, strategic transactions, partnerships, commercial alliances, M&A, due diligence, and future corporate development opportunities.
• Build and own Vay’s regulatory strategy for Remote Driving across federal, state, municipal, US, European, and future market requirements.
• Own commercial legal work across vendors, suppliers, customers, partnerships, vehicle procurement, insurance, leasing, maintenance, and strategic agreements — including scalable templates, approval workflows, and legal playbooks.
• Lead Vay’s data privacy and protection program across CCPA, GDPR, passenger data, vehicle telemetry, Remote Driving session data, operational recordings, employee data, and vendor data processing agreements.
• Design and manage Vay’s insurance, risk, and incident response strategy, including commercial auto, general liability, D&O, E&O, cyber, product liability, safety reporting, litigation, government inquiries, and novel coverages required for Remote Driving operations.
• Advise across employment, IP, compliance, real estate, and outside counsel strategy, ensuring specialist support is used effectively where needed.
• Lead and develop the existing legal team, hire selectively as the function matures, manage outside counsel spend and performance, and set the standard for legal at Vay: fast, pragmatic, commercially minded, deeply embedded in the business, and focused on enabling smart decisions.

What are we looking for

• J.D. from an accredited law school and active bar membership in good standing.
• 10+ years of legal experience, with meaningful time spent both in a top-tier law firm and in-house at a high-growth technology, mobility, or regulated company.
• Strong generalist capability across corporate, commercial, regulatory, employment, privacy, insurance, compliance, IP, litigation, and strategic advisory work.
• Experience supporting fundraising rounds, growth equity transactions, venture financing, M&A, due diligence, or other strategic corporate transactions.
• Strong regulatory instincts, ideally gained in ambiguous or frontier sectors such as mobility, automotive, AV/AD, Remote Driving, drones, fintech, robotics, or another highly regulated technology environment.
• Excellent commercial judgment. You understand that “no” is not legal advice, and you know how to find the path to yes while protecting the company.
• Strong technical legal skills. You can draft precise contract language, analyze a novel regulatory issue, and advise the CEO on a board-level strategic question in the same afternoon.
• Clear, direct communication style. You translate complex legal topics into practical, actionable guidance for engineers, operators, product leaders, executives, and board members.
• Hands-on, autonomous, and pragmatic. You’re comfortable with ambiguity, able to prioritise across competing demands, and ready to take ownership without waiting for structure to appear.